The man behind a lucrative extreme body modification website dedicated to streaming “grisly and gruesome” footage of castrations and limb amputations has been jailed for life with a minimum of 22 years. Marius Gustavson’s Eunuch Maker site, which operated on a pay-per-view subscription basis, had amassed over 22,000 registered users and brought in nearly £300,000 before it was shut down.
Court proceedings revealed horrific details of the body modification ring, which profited from explicit videos of men undergoing “dangerous, unnecessary and life-changing surgeries,” including the removal of male genitals.
The ringleader, Gustavson, 46, was personally involved in at least 30 procedures between 2017 and 2021 before he was arrested, and had kept dismembered body parts as ‘trophies’ in a freezer at his home.
When handing down the sentence, Judge Mark Lucraft said Gustavson had been the mastermind of a “large-scale,” “gruesome and grisly”, and “extremely dangerous” enterprise, which the judge described as “human butchery.”
Judge Lucraft said he was “entirely satisfied” that the motivation “was a mix of sexual gratification as well as financial reward.”
Gustavson’s legal defense argued on his behalf that he was suffering from body integrity disorder (BID) and was merely attempting to “put a smile on people’s faces” by helping those similarly afflicted.
Rashvinderjeet Panesar, defending Gustavson, said: “He had a desire to be the architect of his own body. His modification led him to feelings of empowerment. It appears at face value to be something that’s become an addiction for him.”
One victim, who spoke with Reduxx under the condition of anonymity, told of the psychological manipulation employed by Gustavson’s website, which included a hierarchical rewards system that “made it feel like a game.”
Men who had undergone a verified genital mutilation – whether removal of testicles, penis, or both – or limb amputation were awarded a profile badge that increased their status within the online community.
The victim who came forward presented his impact statement to the Old Bailey, and explained in terrifying detail being strapped down and administered testosterone blockers by Gustavson, which he said had the effect of altering his brain chemistry in a manner which made him “more pliable to manipulation” in the period leading up to the surgical sexual abuse.
“When I hear that people consented to these procedures I wonder what definition of consent they are going with, because I sure as hell did not consent to what happened to me that drug-fuelled night,” the victim said. “I would never have volunteered for castration by burdizzo.”
Also mentioned in the victim impact statement is Gustavson’s connections to “cutters,” amateur surgeons who castrate men for sexual gratification, operating in Berlin. One German man associated with Gustavson claimed that he castrated, or partially amputated the genitals of, eight men between July 2018 and March 2020, while on trial in 2021 for murder after one of his victims died.
“I experienced absolute terror bringing this matter to the police and pressing on with the formal complaint, while knowing I was putting myself on a direct collision course with Mr. Gustavson, his circle of acolytes, and his website where he was undoubted and unquestioned leader of some 20,000 users, and that a single message to his mailing list naming me as the reason for the closure of their playground could have had serious implications,” the unnamed victim said.
“I felt sick knowing that the police were going to watch the video of my castration, imagining the laughter amongst the officers, but I knew it had to be done to stop anyone from being coerced into something that they would go onto regret,” he added.
The victim, whose testimony was crucial to the case, also noted that NHS Scotland had uploaded a draft version of a document produced by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) to their official website which acknowledged “eunuch” as a gender identity.
The document was later pulled from the site and an official apology was issued. However, as previously reported exclusively by Reduxx, the guidance written by leading figures at WPATH had been created in collaboration with another group of men who operated in an online forum hosting sadomasochistic castration and child abuse content.
Last December, Gustavson appeared at the Old Bailey Criminal Court in London via video link from HMP Belmarsh, where he has been detained during court proceedings, and admitted to charges of causing grievous bodily harm with intent.
Six other men appeared in court and admitted their roles in the body modification fetish group. Among them were Peter Wates, a retired former member of the Royal Society of Chemists, and Janus Atkin, who was training to become a veterinarian.
Separately, Gustavson also pleaded guilty to making and distributing two indecent videos of a child between January 2017 and January 2020. The anonymous source involved in the court case recalled the “wave of revulsion” he felt after an officer told him that among the sadomasochistic pornography found on Gustavson’s devices, there were also depictions of child sexual abuse.
The streaming genital mutilation media was part of a larger endeavor undertaken by a network of men who aided Gustavson and performed fetishistic amputations and other procedures for sexual gratification. Former nurses Nathaniel Arnold, 46, Jacob Crimi-Appleby, 23, and Damien Brynes, 36, assisted Gustavson with removing some of his own body parts, and have since been convicted.
Crimi-Appleby used his access to medical supplies in order to freeze Gustavson’s leg causing it to require amputation. Brynes removed his penis and Arnold facilitated the partial removal of one of Gustavson’s nipples. Arnold also admitted stealing lidocaine while working as nurse at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital between January 2016 and January 2022, and possession of extreme pornographic images.
Brynes, Arnold, and Crimi-Appleby have all admitted causing grievous bodily harm with intent. Shockingly, a video presented in court showed Byrnes cutting off Gustavson’s penis with a kitchen knife, while joking, “Well, that’s one off the bucket list.”
Gustavson, who identifies as a “nullo,” had advertised on a gay hookup app seeking assistance in becoming a eunuch before offering Byrnes, an escort, £500 to carry out the procedure at his his Haringey flat on February 18, 2017.
Gustavson referred to Byrnes as a “sexy, kinky helper” and, in the days leading up to the surgery, claimed to have performed similar operations on over 26 individuals, removing both their penis and testicles. Byrnes admitted to performing the castration for financial gain, and the video was shared on Gustavson’s website, which charged fees on a pay-per-view model.
In addition to the nurses, 66-year-old surgeon Peter Wates, referred to as Gustavson’s “right-hand man,” was said to have played a role in nine out of the 29 known procedures. He also admitted to conspiracy to commit grievous bodily harm.
Prosecutor Caroline Carberry told the court that “the nature and scale” of the “lucrative business in the dangerous, unnecessary and life-changing surgeries carried out by non-medically qualified individuals… is without precedent.”
“All of these individuals were active in the extreme body modification or mutilation scene and the consensual or mutilation of male genitalia,” Carberry added. “It is a remarkable feature of this case that the website was operating in plain sight – not on the dark web – accessible to anyone who stumbled upon it and had the inclination and means to pay to view the gruesome footage.”
He also kept removed genitalia such as testicles as “trophies” in at his Harringay home and “sold” body parts to others. According to court records, body parts were put up for auction online via a “buy it now” button. The youngest victim identified was 16 years old.
Prosecutor Carberry KC said there was “clear evidence” of cannibalism and that Gustavson had apparently created an “artfully arranged salad platter” of cooked testicles. Carberry showed the court images of body parts stored in plastic bags contained in Gustavson’s freezer and noted that “it wasn’t unusual for the excised genitalia to be kept by some of these defendants.”
Following his 2021 arrest, officers had discovered Gustavson’s own penis tucked away in a drawer at his home, where he had been keeping his amputated member for four years. However, “Gustavson wasn’t the only defendant to keep trophies from his surgeries,” prosecutor Carberry explained.
She also described a video call Gustavson conducted with one site user in Sweden wherein he instructed the man to “maim himself” by slicing off his testicles with a knife. Just three days later, Gustavson would then urge the man to remove his penis, as well.
Gustavson was initially arrested along with six other men in February 2022. Shortly after his arrest, he told The Independent in an interview that he had undergone an amateur orchiectomy himself and carried the operation out on 58 other men. He stated that he had his own genitals surgically removed because he wanted to “look like a Ken doll with nothing down there.”
The practice of removing the testicles or amputating the penis is linked to a male body modification fetish subculture known as “nullification,” and participants identify themselves as “nullos” or “smoothies.” While advertising his Eunuch Maker site and services online, Gustavson called himself Theo and described himself as a “happy nullo.”
Gustavson ran several social media accounts, using the handles @nullotheo, @ampunullotheo, @chubtheo, and @theo-eunuchmaker. His accounts on X were followed by men who identified as transgender, as well as those involved in chastity fetishism, eunuchdom, and nullification. On one account, he displayed a stylized “non-binary” pride flag in his header.
A website owned by Gustavson, eunuchmaker.co.uk, sold graphic videos of castrations and amputations. Registered in 2016, it also offered the option of paid monthly memberships for streaming videos of penectomies. Premium subscriptions included the option of a “free castration performed by the EunuchMaker.”
A registration form on the site listed possible “gender identities” based on sadomasochistic criteria. Among them were eunuch, nullo (nullification), and cutter, a euphemism for a person who performs male genital modification surgeries.
Promotions on his primary platform direct visitors to another URL owned by Gustavson, Eunuchmaker.info. Archived versions of the page redirect to yet another online community, the-em.com, which is cited in criminal charges filed October 21, 2020, in the U.S. state of Oklahoma against two men who participated in fetishistic genital surgeries.
Bobby Lee Allen and his partner Thomas Evan Gates were charged with conspiracy to commit an unlicensed surgery, maiming, and failure to bury a dead human member, and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon.
The two men, self-described ‘cannibals’, removed the testicles of a 28-year-old Virginia resident as part of an illegally conducted gender reassignment surgery. Afterwards, according to court records, Allen laughed and told the victim he intended to consume his amputated members.
Allen had claimed to have had 15 years of experience and several other patients lined up for future procedures. The victim further alleged that Allen boasted of leaving a man “open” to die after an operation. Allen and Gates had lured the man to their cabin by way of Gustavson’s Eunuch Maker’s website and forum.
In another grisly case involving Gustavson’s forum, an elderly Florida man was sentenced to three years in prison following a bloody botched home castration he performed and recorded on camera, apparently intending to broadcast the footage through the Eunuch Maker site. Gary Van Ryswyk, 76, performed the genital surgery in August 2019 on a male victim, then aged 53.
Despite the international coverage of the disturbing genital mutilation ring, media failed to note that Gustavson had been a prominent member of the LGBT activist community.
According to Gustavon’s LinkedIn profile, he was a volunteer and Senior Steward for London’s Pride organization between 2016 to 2019. His first Eunuch Maker site was registered in 2016, and in 2018, he started a film production company called Nullset.
Prior to his relocation to London in 2012, Gustavson was Chairman of the Board for the Buskerud chapter of transactivist lobbying group The Norwegian Organization for Sexual and Gender Diversity, now known as FRI. Gustavson was involved in a leadership position at the organization from 2001 through 2007. During this time, FRI went by the name ‘The National Association for Lesbian and Gay Liberation,’ or LLH.
In 2018, The Norwegian Organization for Sexual and Gender Diversity (FRI) successfully lobbied the World Health Organization to officially depathologize fetishism, sadomasochism, and fetishistic transvestitism by removing them from the 11th revision of the International Classifications of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD-11).
The initiative by LLH / FRI was called “Revise F65,” in reference to the classification category designated by the WHO’s ICD guidelines. Listed under “F65” in version 10 of the manual were “disorders of sexual preference:” fetishism, transvestic fetishism, sadomasochism, voyeurism, and pedophilia.
At a 2004 LLH / FRI convention, the Revise F65 mandate was explicitly expressed in the organization’s political platform. It was during this time that Gustavson served in a leadership position for the activist group.
“In addition to national work,” the campaign’s website states, “Revise F65 also have an international mandate to motivate other countries to remove their national versions of the SM/fetish ICD diagnoses.”